“I don’t see anything in that to make a fuss about,” she said, with a pout. “When I’m done sleeping, I’m done, and so I stop. When you’ve done eating no one expects you to go on chewing for an hour, do they? Now I want breakfast right away. We’ve lots to do this morning.”
Lucy was at once dispatched for plenty of food for two, and then Dorothea inquired what was the pressing business a-foot.
“First thing, I must show you to my Cousin Corinne,” Harriot explained. “You’ll be a terrible disappointment to her. She thinks she’s the only cousin I have handy, and she’s always bragging to me about the Polks and the Morgans, who are kin to her but not to me. So I want you to put on a very pretty dress and I’ll make Uncle Jastrow harness up and drive us over there in style, just like you were too proud to walk.”
At this juncture the breakfast arrived and as Lucy set the tray upon the bed she implored the girls to be careful and not spill the salt.
“Is it so precious?” asked Dorothea.
“No, missy, ’tain’t that,” Lucy explained, “but land sakes, honey, it’s most powerful bad luck.”
Dorothea laughed.
“I don’t believe in bad luck,” she insisted, at which Lucy threw up her hands in horror.
Even in this time of scarcity Aunt Decent had sent up food enough for three or four girls, though Harriot grumbled because there were no beaten biscuits, and brought the announcement from Lucy that white flour was so scarce that they were saving what was left for sick folks.
“An’ youh ma she say if ever again she see the full of a bar’l of white flour at one time she’s gwin’ to give a party. Youh ma’s mammy she took mighty good care to open up she’s hands an put somepin’ in ’em when she was a baby. So, nach’ly you ma she ain’t close-fisted, nohow. What she’s got, she shares.”